I don’t like fireworks.
NO WAIT.
Scratch that. I hate fireworks with a passion so firey you could use it to light, well, fireworks. (But FFS, please don’t!)

My reasons are many and varied, actually; ranging from my general extreme distain for stupidly loud things, on through to much deeper-seated anxieties.

I am not a fan of fire, for the most part.
Highrise living allowed me to indulge that distain, and I rock a Charbroil Patio Bistro for a grill, and a firepit that “burns” giant sterno cans. No plans to switch any of that up just because I technically can now that we are living at ground level.

But the whopper, the real defining moment in the history of me that probably led to all of my “down with the damn fireworks” and “love America? BBQ, have a beer and effing go to bed already” sentiment is, as so many stories from my childhood are, a story about a time I peed my pants.

Yep.
I was a pants pee’er. Like WAY past when it is ok to do it… like “spare pair of pants in the clinic at school in MIDDLE school” situation..

And one year on the 4th of July, in this very town, probably around age 7 or so, I hopped in our neighbor’s brand spankin’ new super sweet truck with my sister and his daughters and off we went to the local fireworks display.

Details are hazy after that. I remember it being loud, being too scared to get up to pee during the show, and at some point I peed.

I remember lysol and swearing coming in a cloud from the back seat of that truck parked in the neighbor’s driveway the next morning.

And years later when he became a councilman, and then the mayor, all I could ever think was “peed your truck at the fireworks dude… sorry.”

Throw in the fact that they moved the town display from the pee park location to a newer park that is so close to where we live now that the damn windows rattle from the noise of the show, AND that the burbs are crawling with dumbasses firing illegal “home” fireworks off trying to burn my damn house down (it seems,) and I’m about as happy as I am on gynie visit day on the 4th of July.

We have plenty of pictures and old home movies of tiny me crying while someone tried to give me a sparkler and my sister danced around making firey patterns with hers in the background. (WTF, people? “Here kid, here’s your STICK OF FIRE to hold… America, eff yeah!” Just no.)

My nerves are shot, my dog is a quaking mass of panic, the white noise machines in my kid’s room are as loud as they can go to drown all that noise out.

So for pity’s sake neighbors… put that fire shooter down (in a bucket of water, yo,) and grab a drink and come sit next to my fire pit… I just put in a fresh set of fuel cans and I’ll infrared you a burger on my grill.

Let’s end the cycle of suburban holiday pants peeing here and now. It could be your dualie I soil next.

Reluctantly Suburban Eats

Recipes: Eat, Drink, and be Keri

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